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ArcCN-Runoff: An ArcGIS tool for generating

curve number and runoff maps
ARTICLE in ENVIRONMENTAL MODELLING AND SOFTWARE OCTOBER 2004
Impact Factor: 4.42 DOI: 10.1016/j.envsoft.2004.03.001 Source: dx.doi.org

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2 AUTHORS:
Xiaoyong Zhan

Min-Lang Huang

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National Cheng Kung University

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Environmental Modelling & Software 19 (2004) 875879

www.elsevier.com/locate/envsoft

Short communication

ArcCN-Runo: an ArcGIS tool for generating curve number

and runo maps
Xiaoyong Zhan a,
, Min-Lang Huang b
a

Kansas Geological Survey, The University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS 66047, USA

Disaster Prevention and Research Center, National Cheng-Kung University, Taiwan, Peoples Republic of China
Received 16 February 2004; received in revised form 16 March 2004; accepted 29 March 2004

Abstract
The development and the application of ArcCN-Runo tool, an extension of ESRI@ ArcGIS software, are reported. This tool
can be applied to determine curve numbers and to calculate runo or inltration for a rainfall event in a watershed. Implementation of GIS techniques such as dissolving, intersecting, and a curve-number reference table improve eciency. Technical processing time may be reduced from days, if not weeks, to hours for producing spatially varied curve number and runo maps. An
application example for a watershed in Lyon County and Osage County, Kansas, USA, is presented.
# 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Curve number; Runo; Watershed; Modeling; Hydrology; GIS

Software availability
Name of software
Developers
Contact address

Tel.:
Fax
E-mail
Availability

ArcCN-Runo
Xiaoyong Zhan and Min-Lang
Huang
Kansas Geological Survey, The
University of Kansas, 1930
Constant Ave., Lawrence, KS
66047, USA
+1-785-864-2173
+1-785-864-5317
xyz@ku.edu
http://arcscripts.esri.com/
details.asp?dbid=13311

1. Introduction
In hydrology a curve number (CN) is used to determine how much rainfall inltrates into soil or an aquifer and how much rainfall becomes surface runo. A
high curve number means high runo and low inltration (urban areas), whereas a low curve number


Corresponding author. Tel.: +1-785-864-2173; fax: +1-785-8645317.
E-mail address: xyz@ku.edu (X. Zhan).

1364-8152/$ - see front matter # 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.envsoft.2004.03.001

means low runo and high inltration (dry soil). The

curve number is a function of landuse and hydrologic
soil group. The Soil Conservation Service (SCS; now
Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS))
curve-number method is the most common method for
predicting storm runo volume. Many watershed models such as AGNPS (Young et al., 1987), EPIC (Williams, 1995), SWAT (Arnold et al., 1996), and WMS
(http://www.ems-i.com/WMS/WMS_Overview/wms_
overview.html) use this method to determine runo.
Sediment and nutrient transports are then calculated
based on the runo. Some applications of this method
with watershed models in Kansas were reported
recently (Bhuyan et al., 2002, 2003; Tsou and Zhan,
2004; Misgna et al., 2004).
Traditionally, an area weighted average curve number for the entire watershed is used to study the runo
of a watershed. The details of the spatial variation in
the watershed are often lost. An ArcGIS tool, named
ArcCN-Runo, is therefore developed to facilitate
watershed-modeling work. Unlike raster mode,
ArcCN-Runo is designed for any shape of polygon in
order to keep irregular boundaries unaltered. Application of dissolving techniques reduces processing time
signicantly. The curve-number database implemented
provides a exible way to use a reference table for the

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X. Zhan, M.-L. Huang / Environmental Modelling & Software 19 (2004) 875879

Fig. 1.

Flow chart of ArcCN-Runo.

curve number based on soil and landuse information.

Users can also develop their own database as simply as
to editing an Excel le. The tool can be used to design
and manage hydraulic structures and projects, to estimate future discharges, and to predict watershed
response associated with changes in topography, soil,
landuse, and landcover (e.g. urbanization).
This paper documents the development of the
ArcCN-Runo and its application to a watershed in
Lyon and Osage counties, Kansas, for the estimation of
runo depth and volume based on the spatially varying
information on soil and landuse. The following sections
are organized in a step-by-step procedure through a
eld example to explain the development and application of ArcCN-Runo. Fig. 1 shows the ow chart
for this software. The software was developed with Visual Basic 6 on an ArcGIS 8.3 platform and its structure
includes one clipping tool, one intersecting tool, one
working panel, and one curve-number database.

jection, and then added into ArcMap again. The Kansas GAP Analysis Land Cover database includes 43
land-cover classes for the state of Kansas. The attributes covername in the landuse data is used.
After loading the ArcCN-Runo tool in .dll le format into ArcMap, soil and land data were processed
through the following three steps: (1) To focus on an
interesting area or a watershed, the soil and land data
for the watershed were clipped using a polygon feature
from the overlay layer such as a watershed-boundary
layer. (2) To reduce processing time, the soil and landuse layers were dissolved before intersection, based on
the attributes hydrogroup in soil and covername
in landuse. For this example, the number of polygons
for soil was reduced from 611 to 4 and for landuse
from 4330 to 17 after being dissolved. Figs. 2 and 3 are
the dissolved soil and landuse layers, respectively. (3)
Soil and landuse layers were intersected to generate
new and smaller polygons associated with soil hydrogroup and landuse covername. This step keeps all the

2. Processing data
Soil and landuse data are needed as inputs. In the
USA, these data are usually available on the internet.
The following procedures, as an example, explain how
to prepare data before using the ArcCN-Runo tool.
Soil data of two counties, Lyon and Osage, Kansas,
were downloaded from http://www.ncgc.nrcs.usda.
gov/branch/ssb/products/ssurgo/. These coverages
were projected from CGS_North_American_1983 to
NAD83 using ArcInfo. After adding these coverages
into ArcMap, a table called comp in soil data, which
contains the attribute hydrogroup, is linked to the
coverage for each country individually. These two coverages for two counties were then merged with Geoprocessing wizard.
The landuse data of these counties were downloaded
from
http://mapster.kgs.ku.edu/dasc/catalog/coredata.html. First, the land coverage was added into
ArcMap, exported as a shapele with appropriate pro-

Fig. 2.

Soil data.

X. Zhan, M.-L. Huang / Environmental Modelling & Software 19 (2004) 875879

877

output are stored in the newly generated layer after

intersection and the operation was performed through
the following panel (Fig. 4). An important step is to
match the covername of landuse to the landuse of
index table in the curve-number database. The curvenumber database was built based on the similar curvenumber databases of AnnAGNPS, Basins, and other
watershed models. For real eld application, the curvenumber database should be developed based on the
local eld data if possible. Users can prepare this database easily by editing an Excel le and then exporting
it in .dbf format. The map showing spatial variation of
the curve number (Fig. 5) is generated automatically
after clicking on the button called nish match on
the working panel, Fig. 5. Using the statistics functions
in ArcMap, users can report immediately some statistical results of the curve number for the watershed.
Fig. 3. Landuse data.

4. Calculating runo
details of the spatial variation of soil and landuse, and
therefore it is considered more accurate than using raster grid to calculate runo or any average or dominant
methods to determine curve number.
3. Determining curve numbers
The curve number for each polygon was determined
from the soil and landuse information. All input and

Fig. 4.

The runo is calculated based on the SCS curvenumber-runo method. The SCS curve-number
method assumes that, for a rainfall storm event, the
ratio of actual retention of soil after runo begins to
the potential maximum retention of soil is equal to the
ratio of direct runo to rainfall. This simplied
assumption (Ponce and Hawkins, 1996) results in the
following runo equation where the curve number

Working panel.

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X. Zhan, M.-L. Huang / Environmental Modelling & Software 19 (2004) 875879

Fig. 5.

Curve number generated.

Fig. 6.

(0  CN  100) represents a convenient representation

of the potential maximum soil retention (S):
rainfall  0:2S2
rainfall 0:8S
runoff 0
runoff

if rainfall > 0:2S

Runo calculated.

ditions, aecting the determinations of curve number

and runo. They will be the main eorts for the future
version of this software.

if rainfall < 0:2S

where S 1000=CN  10 in inches and S 25 400=

CN  254 in mm, SI units.
Data provided by the Kansas Agriculture Statistics
Service (Policy Research Institute of The University of
Kansas, 2003) show that the average annual precipitation from 1961 to 1990 for Lyon County is 38.66 in
(980 mm). The precipitation used for this example is
3:222 in 38:66 in/12 months. It can be interpreted as
the averaged monthly value or a single rainfall event by
assuming there are about 12 relative large rainfalls
annually. In short, it is a hypothetical precipitation
event for this example. Apparently, daily and eventbased runo can be calculated in a similar way.
Fig. 6 shows the runo in depth, responding to the
specied precipitation event. The runo in volume is
area multiplied by runo depth. The total area of the
watershed is 108 m2 and the total runo in volume is
3 708 338 m3 for the whole watershed.

5. Final remarks
The newly developed ArcCN-Runo tool and its
application to a watershed are reported to introduce
this tool to the research community for protection of
water resources and water quality in watersheds.
Improvements may be made through implementing
precipitation time series and considering additional factors, such as dry and wet antecedent moisture con-

Acknowledgements
Appreciation is expressed to Dave Young for matching the covername in landuse in the watershed and
those in the database. XYZ appreciates the computer
support of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Innovation Project No. KZCX3-SW-428). The review comments from Harry He, Department of Natural
Resources, New South Wales, Australia; Ming-Shu
Tsou, Hydrologic Inc., USA; and Li Zheng, Chinese
Academy of Sciences, were helpful in improving the
clarity of this manuscript. The authors would like to
thank Ms. Marla Adkins-Heljeson for helping to edit
this paper.

References
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